Chessquid

I decided to get a refund for now. Chessquid is promising but largely in development. In my opinion they shouldn't be offering it for sale yet.    

I recently purchased Chessquid Pro. It's in development. I hope they get more of the database features working soon. I'll edit this post to include a review of the software soon. Here is a quick game I played against the program. It does have a big selection of opponents tuned to different playing levels.

Chess In The Times

 I am a New York Times subscriber. Recently I found a really fun and educational chess feature. Chess Puzzles. It allows you to play a puzzle position from a famous players game. It does cost $1.25 a week extra. I did a trial example. It appears to be well done. Do you know of other places where chess is a feature? 

  Click this link https://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/chess-puzzles.

Finding The Best Move

 What goes into making the best chess move? Well it's not just the move. It has to be part of a plan. I decided to try to mind map the process. Strongly influenced by the book "How to Reassess Your Chess" by Jeremy Silman.   What do you think? Did I miss anything? Click the picture to make it bigger. If you like the content be sure to comment and follow.

Chess Class

I taught a basic class on how to play chess. It took the students from beginner to an introduction to advanced ideas. I created a mindmap to organize my thoughts while creating the class. I'm posting it here in case it can help someone. Also I'm thinking of creating a new mindmap of how to approach the game.

Chess Lessons Part 2 lichess & Chess24

 After Chess.com (see Chess Lessons Part 1) lichess is another all in one chess site. It has a vast array of tools to play and study chess. Including structured lessons. 

Chess basics are divided into Chess Pieces, Fundamentals, Intermediate, Advanced, and What's Next.

Practice contains Checkmates, Basic Tactics, Intermediate Tactics, & Pawn Endgames. This is where many will discover the beauty of the game. If you already know how to play I would highly recommend this section.

 

Another mega chess site is Chess24. They too have lessons.

Under courses the lessons are grouped into three sections. Each section becomes available as to complete the previous one.

Likewise you can progress through the lessons as you complete them.

So I've given you 3 very good resources to begin your road to improvement. I'm sure there are others out there. I'm going to stop here and try to put together a post on advanced learning options. If you like the content please consider following the blog. Have something to add? Be sure to leave a comment below. Thanks again.

Chess Lessons Part 1 Chess.com

 For free you can go to www.chess.com and begin lessons. 

Just scroll down and click the Start Lessons button.

They are devidedd into four sections. New To Chess, Beginner, Intermediate, and Expert. They are professionally done. I've played hundreds of tournament games. I am a USCF Local Tournament Director (there is a test). So I know the rules. However I never had any formal training or coaching. So I decided to do all the lessons, even the New To Chess and Beginner sections. I recommend them.

The systematic method employed makes sure you cover all the bases. It's a fast way to learn and get up to speed.

The Advanced lessons can go on after you complete the courses.

I've completed all the Guide lessons, but I still study from some of their unguided lessons. This is a wonderful free resource. I highly recommend it. I recently added a Follow button in the upper left just under the title banner. I hope you will like the blog enough to follow and leave feedback. Thank you.

What About Chess Engines? Part 2

 In What About Chess Engines Part 1 we saw how powerful chess engines can give deep analysis of a complex position. This tool is helpful to point out what moves are strong, but this leaves you to figure out why and the ideas behind each move. This is where Decode Chess with it's AI (Artificial Intelligence) can be a real help. Using Stockfish running on it's servers Decode can analyze a game or position and give a lot of explanations as to the why and ideas behind each move.

I put in our position from Part 1 and let Decode "think" on it. The summery tab came back with a lot of good info. Explaining why Stockfish NNUE (what is NNUE) likes the idea of castling in this position. What are the forces at play. I like the graphics on the board too.

  Clicking on the + sign next to "How to find the best move. +" yields additional information. What is the Idea? the Problem? the Solution? It's all spelled out in a more human way of thinking.

If you click the tabs across the top you can learn even more. What is the role of the pieces involved in this continuation? Again the graphic is very well done.

The next tab deals with the Threats in the position. Before Black makes his move...

... and after.

So besides the best move. What are some other good moves? The "Good Moves" tab shows us.

Next are the "Plans". What is Black wanting to do? What is the problem? and the solution.

Finally the Concepts tab.

Here after expanding the Black uses the open d file concept. We see my original idea Nb6 wasn't totally without merit. I hope you enjoyed this deep dive into chess engines and how they can be used. I'd love to hear your thoughts if you would care to leave feedback below.